The First Day
by fluidstatic
Summary: The Metacrisis Doctor finds himself Human, in a Jeep, with the Tyler family endeavoring for coffee and normalcy.


When it's certain the TARDIS won't be coming back, Everyone piles quietly into the Jeep. For a long time nobody speaks, but when Rose starts to cry again the whole family deflates in sympathy.

"You must be exhausted," The Doctor says sadly. She doesn't have the werewithal to disagree with him. Jackie almost cries herself, but It's Mickey who finally rallies everyone with the most stupidly mundane - and quite possibly best - idea anyone has had all day.

"Y'think there's coffee shops in Norway? I'm desperate for a little caffeine."

Nobody thinks to bring up that Daleeg Ulv Stranden is in the middle of nowhere; in fact Pete makes a grateful noise at the thought of somewhere to go and reaches for the map on the dashboard, newly determined to be useful to the whole affair.

"Coffee!" The Doctor says, perhaps a little manically. "I was there when it was discovered, you know. Rediscovered, actually. Nobody on New Earth knew what coffee was, it'd gone extinct ages and ages ago; but when the beans showed up in a mutation in the terraforming effort, you might as well have witnessed the invention of the wheel. Funny, actually, since it tastes just the same after all those millenia. Some things never change. You Humans, you're brilliant…"

Jackie glances at him in the rearview mirror, and there is something like wonder mixed with disgust in her face. He smiles back at her, flatly. "…Well. 'You Humans,' That doesn't work anymore, does it. Blimey, I'll never say _that _again."

"Welcome to the Human Race, by the way," Mickey says, and reaches across Rose to pat The Doctor firmly on the arm.

Rose has stopped crying; her childlike face has grown heavy with the dark work of defying space and time, but she is still young, still capable of wonder. Her mouth tries to curve into a smile at the thought of Her Doctor stepping down from his perch above Humanity, part of the drudging simplicity of Jeeps and Coffee and trying to Fit.

When nobody else sees a reason to say anything about the matter, she leans on The Doctor's shoulder and goes to sleep.

When she wakes up she can hear airplanes. The Jeep is in some sort of airport parking lot, and the noise is comfortingly busy and mad. The Doctor has been chattering about drag and lift for a while, and she snuggles closer to his arm, noticing that he smells a little different than he has before. She wonders if he'll ever wear cologne or not. Her thoughts drift to the daily patterns of live-ins; towels in the wash, two toothbrushes by the sink, oversized men's shirts to kip in, lying on the couch at three in the morning watching horrible telly with her head in his lap.

"Oh, hello. Hope you slept well," The Doctor comments, brushing hair out of her eyes. "We made it all the way to Oslo and you barely made a peep."

"I feel better," she says, and it's true. His eyes gleam gratefully.

Pete comes back to the jeep with two trays of Starbucks. Not one to make a fuss with elaborate orders, he'd procured tea with cream and two sugars for The Doctor and Rose, Coffee with nonfat milk for Jackie, black coffee for himself and Mickey.

"Look at that, they've got our names on," The Doctor says, surprised.

"The girl at the counter was a little puzzled when I told her to put 'Doctor' on that one, but we'd have to tell them apart somehow." Pete says. "Didn't know what you'd want to be called," he admits, shrugging.

"There's plenty of time to figure that out," Rose says.

"It is the first day of the rest of our lives, after all," The Doctor agrees, testing the thought. Everyone laughs, and everyone is surprised.

The world is as it should be.

Somewhere, in another sky, sealed away in a flurry of impossible truths, The TARDIS spins through time and space, remembering. She senses these two, suddenly so small and remarkably ordinary; She feels a small part of her Doctor mercifully fixed in the pattern of another reality, contented, nearly bored; it soothes her, makes some small part of her chaotic flight a little easier.


End file.
